Noun Phrases

Nouns in English are traditionally described as naming “ persons, places, things, and ideas.”
Pronouns are a subcategory of nouns. Noun phrases are formed by a noun or pronoun and any modifiers., complements, or determiners including adjectives,determiners, prepositional 
Phrases,noun clauses, and verb phrases.

A noun phrases most commonly functions as a subject, object, or complement.
Example :

• My coach is happy.
• I like the cars over there.
• The woman who lives there is my aunt.
• Frankestein is the name of the scientist not the monster. 
• I consider Meong my favorite cat.
• Small childrend often insist that they can do it by themselves.
• To read quickly and accurately is jhon’s goal. 
• Two of my guest have arrived.Mr. Jones spoke to Dr. James.
• My friend works with her father.

Nouns and noun phrases perform ten grammatical function in the English language. The ten functions 
Are :

1. Subject
2. Subject complement
3. Direct object
4. Object complement
5. Indirect object
6.  Prepositional complement
7. Noun phrase modifier
8. Determinative
9. Appositive 
10. Adverbial

From a functional point of view, the noun phrase has four major components, occurring in a fixed order :

• The determinative, that constituent which determines the reference of the noun fhrase in its linguistic or situational context.
• Premodification, which comprises all the modifying or describing constituents before the head, other than the determiners.
• The head, around which the other constituents cluster.
• Postmodification, those which comprise all the modifying constituents placed after the head.

Structures of Noun phrase :

1. NOUN PHRASE : pre – modifiers + noun 

• White house ; here white is a pre-modifier and house is a noun.
• The three old Democratic legislators ; here the three old Democratic is pre-modifier and legislators is a noun.

2. NOUN PHRASE : noun + post – modifiers. ( the most common post – modifier is prepositional phrase)

• The glass on the table ; here on the table is the post-modifier.
• The boy in the store ; here in the store is the post modifier.

3. NOUN PHRASE : pre – modifier + noun + post – modifier.

• The boys on top of the house are…. Here The is the pre-modifier, boys is the noun, on top of the house is the post-modifier. 
•  The children in the garden ; here The is the pre-modifier, children is the noun, in the garden is the post-modifier.